News & Development Blog

Hello!

We have updated Cobalt to v124! This time we have focused on bugs, tweaks and some content. The biggest and most interesting change has to do with bullet time. Here is why:

The Problem

As you may know, bullet time is a big part of Cobalt. Lately I’ve been feeling that the combat in Cobalt has started to get a slightly too focused on timing defensive moves, while offensive moves are executed haphazardly or without much effect on the end result. Because of this, I’ve been looking for a long time to a way to put timing back into attacks.

Inspiration

The idea to adjust bullet time came from being inspired by the difference between the first rounds of Team-Strike where there were no reaction enhancer, and the later round when there were. I really liked that you in the beginning had to keep an eye on your enemies to see what they were doing, not just stare at your own character and react to threats. These first rounds would be quicker, and more about doing precise timed attacks when the enemy didn’t expect them. The later rounds would be more about reacting to situations and executing well timed defensive moves. However, i did not like the inconsistency. It was hard to explain and it also felt like a contrived way to cater to both playing styles.

The Solution

I decided to change how the reaction enhancer is activated. Instead of snapping directly to the incoming threats, the reaction enhancer, when detecting a threat, smoothly activates over time, faster for more dangerous items. The maximum slowdown for a threat was also increased. This changed a number of things:

Bullet time is more predictable and smoother and easier to time correctly and adapt to.

It also means that being cool and timing accurate shots against your opponents is more effective than before.

It also means that keeping enemies at a distance is more important, because you want there to be space between you and your threat to give your reaction enhancer space to activate.

It also means that when attacking, you might not want to attack right away, but hold off on the first shot until you get a little closer, as to not activate the enemy’s reaction enhancer too early.

It also means that you don’t get trapped in bullet time as easy by single or few bullets.

It also means that when bullet time actually starts to really kick in, it can go even slower and allow even more control than before allowing for a far greater range of gameplay.

Let me know what you think!

/thewreck

In other news!

The community map making is really starting to gain some momentum again! In a future update we want to include more maps made from the community but we have not figured out how to do that from a “legal” standpoint yet. In the meantime, head over to http://cobaltvault.no/ and start downloading all the goodies!

Change Log

Alterations:

Bullet Time logic has been changed. Instead of snapping directly to the incoming threats, the reaction enhancer, when detecting a threat, smoothly activates over time, faster for more dangerous items. The maxiumum potential slowdown for a threat has also been increased.

This means that bullet time is more predictable and smooth and easier to time correctly and adapt to.

It also means that being cool and timing accurate shots against your opponents is more effective than before.

It also means that keeping enemies at a distance is more important, because you want there to be space between you and your threat to give your reaction enhancer space to activate.

It also means that when attacking, you might not want to attack right away, but hold off on the first shot until you get a little closer, as to not activate the enemy’s reaction enhancer too early.

It also means that you don’t get trapped in bullet time as easy by single or few bullets.

It also means that when bullet time actually starts to really kick in, it can go even slower and allow even more control than before allowing for a far greater range of gameplay.

New Team-Strike Map: Trunkopolis

Bullet time vs bullets now only activated if they are heading towards you, not away from you.

Railguns have been made more expensive.

Made bot colors more uniform

Made team mask colors more aggressive.

Slight tweak to throwing power and effect of fast tap.

Flashbang eye blinding glow now takes color from eyes to easier identify team

Team settings in actors spawners moved to an owner setting.

Variate in editor when selecting 1 tile only randomizes between other variations

Editing team ownership in editor moved to Owner Mode.

Reaction enhancer/ bullet time stat added to bars in actor selection

Increased bullet time effect of melee combat.

Added a feedback and a bullet time effect to hitting a grenade (punching or shooting it). Also to deflecting a bullet more than 1 time.

Debris and heads flying off now retain hull data and colors which makes it look better! Also, always fun to be able to identify your own head lying on the ground.

Scoping crosshair and laser rays are now colored according to team

Scoping crosshair and logic adjusted.

Bullet time options have been simplified.

Added hud icons to help locate plug

Optimizations

Bullet Time logic has been changed. Instead of snapping directly to the incoming threats, the reaction enhancer, when detecting a threat, smoothly activates over time, faster for more dangerous items. The maxiumum potential slowdown for a threat has also been increased.

This means that bullet time is more predictable and smoother and easier to time correctly and adapt to.

It also means that being cool and timing accurate shots against your opponents is more effective than before.

It also means that keeping enemies at a distance is more important, because you want there to be space between you and your threat to give your reaction enhancer space to activate.

It also means that when attacking, you might not want to attack right away, but hold off on the first shot until you get a little closer, as to not activate the enemy’s reaction enhancer too early.

It also means that you don’t get trapped in bullet time as easy by single or few bullets.

It also means that when bullet time actually starts to really kick in, it can go even slower and allow even more control than before allowing for a far greater range of gameplay.

New Team-Strike Map: Trunkopolis

New Deathmatch Map: Night Temple

Lower classes in Team-Strike now also have reaction enhancers to keep things more consistent.

All metalface full pieces add to the reaction enhancer potency, with the chrono suit adding the most. This means bare metalfaces have less reaction enhancing.

Bullet time vs bullets now only activated if they are heading towards you, not away from you.

Railguns have been made more expensive.

Made bot colors more uniform

Made team mask colors more aggressive.

Slight tweak to throwing power and effect of fast tap.

Flashbang eye blinding glow now takes color from eyes to easier identify team

Team settings in actors spawners moved to an owner setting.

Variate in editor when selecting 1 tile only randomizes between other variations

Editing team ownership in editor moved to Owner Mode.

Reaction enhancer/ bullet time stat added to bars in actor selection

Increased bullet time effect of melee combat.

Added a feedback and a bullet time effect to hitting a grenade (punching or shooting it). Also to deflecting a bullet more than 1 time.

Debris and heads flying off now retain hull data and colors which makes it look better! Also, always fun to be able to identify your own head lying on the ground.

Scoping crosshair and laser rays are now colored according to team

Scoping crosshair and logic adjusted.

Bullet time options have been simplified.

Added hud icons to help locate plug

Optimizations

Bug-Fixes:

Fixed a rather serious auto-aim targeting bug which caused aiming at incoming grenades not to work.

Hacking now works again.

Fixed a crash related to hack device

Fixed heat effect (and all other shaders) not working if a player aborts its invulnerability time by attacking or throwing an item.

I very recently purchased the game so my perception might be influenced by inexperience but “Bullettime” to me playing on extra slowdown (dm vs bots with the crappy suites from standard map settings) has changed to “Grenadetime” … I dont know if this intentional but time seems to be only slowed for lethal explosives or at almost full range for rifles and not at all when bots shoot with short ranged guns at me (the one that spreads bullets in a cone for example). It might be just inexperience but I dont know how to react to those bots (80%) rolling in range and then bursting me.

I may get used to it and ofc its alpha but to me (in deathmatches vs 80% skill bots on 175% slowdown and using map settings) “Bullettime” itself seems erased?

Other than that same crashes when scoping as others pointed out already.

I feel a little bit as though the game doesn’t have some of the same magic that made me love it initially. I think part of what is fun about cobalts is that down-to-the-wire feeling of stress as you try to see if you can evade a grenade or a bullet. I think part of what’s cool about the game is that isn’t some sort of twitch reaction control system like modern first person shooters. I like that it’s about platforming more than aim.

Additionally I’ve had several bugs in just two playthroughs. I tried to enter a game, but pressing the confirm button on my controller wouldn’t let me select a team to enter into.

Custom teams are back! Woo!
Maybe I can finally have separate actors for Sand in the Gears and have better stage blocking. It’s a little annoying having to rely on the AI, but I should be able to use dual controllers now.

The new bullet time mechanics sound fun, and a little more realistic as it kicks in over time, and I especially love that it deactivates after the threat passes by.
It seems like it might take some time getting used to, but that’s never stopped a Metalface before!

The debris thing sounds hilarious and amazing, so that’s awesome.

If there’s a way to do so, how would one set up custom waves in Survival? I tried a few things, and the best I could get was Custom Survival spawnings alongside regular survival waves, which just made things odd and a little chaotic.

I wish I put this earlier in the forum thing, but can you bring back the way that you picked teams, like in v122 for death match and other things? The new update sounds like great fun and I look forward to playing it!

I’ve been playing with the new update to cobalt, and honestly, I’m not very pleased with the bullet time edits. Up until now, matches of Cobalt have been up in the air for the entire round, because it was very difficult to stay on top no matter how much gear you collected/started with. Now, it’s almost impossible to even stand a chance once you’ve died first, because you’re practically powerless against an enemy who has already claimed the best guns. The slowdown that is caused by an incoming projectile is simply far too slow- the more powerful weapons that you say would cause more slowdown are also the fastest traveling weapons, essentially causing 0 slowdown. There is a space of probably under a third of a second to make a roll that is far enough along to actually deflect the bullet!
In short: The old bullet time effects were too sensitive, and the new effects are not sensitive enough.

Okay, I have one amendment to make.
I was playing on Space Zone (my absolute favorite map, love the aesthetic changes to it too), and I actually noticed the slowdown caused by a single something for the first time since the update- the Rocket Launcher is the one and only thing I’ve seen that was slow/dangerous enough to cause the slowdown. The only other thing that activated bullet time that I’ve seen is a very large number of bullets.

Hey, thanks for updating my favorite game.
but I pretty disappointed with survival mode after v123.
It’s too difficult and no freedom.
I’d like to play improved version of it, not branched version.
thanks.

Newbie:
You might be right there! As you can imagine this is the first version we tried adjusting these things, so I’ll try and make a small tweak again for next version and see if we can get it just right.

Woody:
I see these points! We will adjust the tweaks in next version. Lets hope we can get it just right!

Thank you for error reports! fixed in next version.

Fabio:
Thanks! No way to make custom waves in “waves survival” now, but we are still exploring these things.

Librus:
Yes, i think we might have overdone it a bit just because of the novelty of it. Will tweak it for next version which should arrive shortly.

Arduino:
You can select teams like that in v124. Before starting the map, pick how many teams you like in the map options.

You can run old survival maps, but we do not ship them. We understand there is some desire for those and we are taking this feedback into account.

Relinies:
You make some good points and i think we agree. Old was too sensitive, current is probably not sensitive enough. The perfect balance lies somewhere in between.

Hello everyone ! I am relieved there is progress and some great improvement and bug-fixes, although now i don’t seem to be able to use 2 controllers, cause the game crashes immediately after i press join ! Hope you can fix this…It’s not only for two controllers, the same happens with one controller and a keyboard !

The bulletime IS a bit nerfed, but it’s not too much of a problem. I can live with it until the next update. I’m excited for what’s in store next, but I’ll definitely be able to keep my friends and myself entertained with this update!!

The latest version is v124i, v125 is not out for the public yet.
However, if the version you have is v124 and not v124i, just download the installer from playcobalt.com and reinstall the game (no need to uninstall, just install on the same directory, I think).